The 2016 Presidential Candidates Thread

[grokit]

This guy sure has a razor-thin line to walk, considering the church's firm pro-life stance.

“I think it is not right to identity Islam with violence,” [Pope Francis] told reporters aboard the plane taking him back to Rome after a five-day trip to Poland. “This is not right and this is not true.”

 

[CarolKing]

Democratic Party voted in favor of this statement as a guiding principle for the party and its membership:

“Because of conflicting federal and state laws concerning marijuana, we encourage the federal government to remove marijuana from the list of ‘Schedule 1’ federal controlled substances and to appropriately regulate it, providing a reasoned pathway for future legalization.
We believe that the states should be laboratories of democracy on the issue of marijuana, and those states that want to decriminalize it or provide access to medical marijuana should be able to do so.
We support policies that will allow more research on marijuana, as well as reforming our laws to allow legal marijuana businesses to exist without uncertainty.
And we recognize our current marijuana laws have had an unacceptable disparate impact in terms of arrest rates for African-Americans that far outstrip arrest rates for whites, despite similar usage rates.”

 

[lwien]

As if we needed another reason to vote, eh.

 

[Silat]

Democratic Party voted in favor of this statement as a guiding principle for the party and its membership:

“Because of conflicting federal and state laws concerning marijuana, we encourage the federal government to remove marijuana from the list of ‘Schedule 1’ federal controlled substances and to appropriately regulate it, providing a reasoned pathway for future legalization.
We believe that the states should be laboratories of democracy on the issue of marijuana, and those states that want to decriminalize it or provide access to medical marijuana should be able to do so.
We support policies that will allow more research on marijuana, as well as reforming our laws to allow legal marijuana businesses to exist without uncertainty.
And we recognize our current marijuana laws have had an unacceptable disparate impact in terms of arrest rates for African-Americans that far outstrip arrest rates for whites, despite similar usage rates.”

We cannot even get the reich to allow gun studies and science.

 

[Stevenski]

I fucking lived in Footascary & for all the filth & flotsam that is the most disgusting thing I have seen there & Footastabby is a real fucking shithole. I feel a bit melancholy as it is right next to where I used to get a killer Banh Mi & jam donuts . He also put up another fuck you for Donnies prozzie although she looks better than most of the streetwalkers in the Scary.

 

[gangababa]

Trump was "viciously attacked" by the gold-star family father Khzr Khan, so Donnie boy says.
That is why he had to vent his unrestrained angry, fearful inner child over these past 72 hours; a time during which he or others could have manifested adult behavior and stopped the Trump tantrum.

Instead, Trump surrogates are now defending and spinning lies, shouting into the echo chamber of the never-right-minded, that the Khan's dead soldier son was a Muslim terrorist traitor and also saying Khzr Khan has Muslim brotherhood connections.
Lie, lie often, lie in-consistently (so you don't have to keep track), lie constantly and you will never know the shame of embarrassment of being a black-souled sinner.

Read here for one man's take on the Trump and his inner-child.

"For a narcissist like Trump, the rage and emotional disequilibrium of being dominated, humiliated is simply too much to bear. He must lash out. What he said in one of his tweets responding to the Khans is perhaps the most telling. "I was viciously attacked by Mr. Khan at the Democratic Convention. Am I not allowed to respond?" The use of the adverb "viciously" is a good tell that Trump is a narcissist. But setting that aside, most people would know that the answer is "No, you're not."...Someone with a moral consciousness who is capable to empathy would understand this through a moral prism".

All need remember that President Obama has weathered eight years of truly vicious attacks, deep dark racist attacks, vile misspelled attacks from the bowels of conservative America's inner-child hell-hounds of hate.

President Obama has responded with a restraint that mirrors Saintliness.

 

[CuckFumbustion]

Presidential candidate Gary Johnson in a few interviews promised to not smoke pot while in office and hasn't smoked out in over 7 weeks. He is currently eligible in all 50 states and is trying to get a place at the podium. Even if I didn't already agree with most of his policies, he would be so much to the debate. Here is a few clips.

 

[yogoshio]

For the first time in my life I donated to a political campaign, and it was Gary Johnson.

 

[cybrguy]

How the ‘Racist Party’ Created Donald Trump
by Martin Longman
August 1, 2016 11:15 AM

Reading Max Boot’s column (How the ‘Stupid Party’ Created Donald Trump) in the New York Times, I was reminded of a piece I wrote last September called How the Stupid Party was Made. Here’s my intro to that piece:

It’s easy to get inured to polling results that demonstrate that a significant part of the American population barely has enough brain capacity to operate their lungs. It’s hard to imagine how a brain that can simultaneously hold that the president is a Muslim and that he is at fault for being a member of Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s congregation can figure out how to simultaneously pump the heart and regulate body temperature.

And, therefore, it’s sobering to realize that a plurality of Republican poll responders think the president was born outside of the United States (44%-29%) and a big majority believe that he is a Muslim (54%) rather than a Christian (14%).

Consider the latter proposition. Republican poll responders are almost four times more likely to be wrong about the president’s religion than they are to be correct about it, and a third of them are too stupid to be sure one way or the other.

Okay, so there are a lot of dumb people in the world. This is not a newsflash to anyone.

But they’ve sorted themselves into this conservative movement in a rather striking fashion.​

I’ll get to how I diagnosed this sorting in a minute, but first I want to take a look at Max Boot’s argument. He begins by noting that historically important Republicans like Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon were highly intelligent. He then seems to make a case that Republicans, perhaps starting with Eisenhower, began masquerading as the “stupid party,” in order to “preserve [their] political room to maneuver.”

Boot is taking a longer view than I had in my September piece. He’s trying to figure out how the Republican Party wound up nominating a Birther who “doesn’t know the difference between the Quds Force and the Kurds.” And he may have identified an important component of the explanation which can be described as “pretending to be stupid attracts stupid people.”

However, that doesn’t explain why the Stupid catalyzed from a strategic affectation into a virulent strain of Dumb during the (latter) Bush and Obama presidencies. My explanation addresses that question frontally:

What the Republicans did was create an electorate that didn’t previously exist. Sure, the gullible people were there already, but they weren’t misinformed and they weren’t sorted politically.

The reason this was done by Republicans, I believe, is because the conservative movement has determined that they can hold onto power a little longer despite demographic changes and the browning of America if they can sharply increase their share of the white vote. And the way to do that is not to figure out what these people need and offer ways to give it to them, but to get them to think more in terms of their whiteness. Whites go over here in the right column and everyone else goes over there in the left column.

This is the rationale. It has the potential to work, and it’s already working on the state and congressional district level, helping Republicans control legislatures throughout the country and in Washington DC.

It’s a transparent effort to ramp up racial animosity as a way, probably the only way, to avoid softening their positions on their conservative ideology. If they don’t do this, then they’ll have to recraft their appeal, which means that conservatives will lose control of the Republican Party– one of only two viable parties in the country.​

There’s an ironic beauty in the fact that Trump came along and adopted this strategy as his own, but without the intention of preserving the power of the Conservative Movement. So, Max Boot is correct that the Republicans created Donald Trump by becoming the Stupid Party, but I don’t think he understands how this hijacking really occurred. It wasn’t dabbling in stupidity that weakened the party to the point that it could be stolen from conservatives. It was dabbling in racism that did that.

A political movement that relied on polarizing the nation by race in order to survive without compromising or evolving their ideology wound up getting a racially polarized nation and losing their party and their power.

So, now, conservatives are actually offended the racism goes too far and is sincere, and the pretense to stupidity has become the reality.

There’s a big cleanup in aisle three, and very few of the people who created this mess are in a position to be part of the solution. There’s no constituency left that wants to accept their leadership or listen to what they have to say.

 

[SSVUN~YAH]

Democratic Party voted in favor of this statement as a guiding principle for the party and its membership:

“Because of conflicting federal and state laws concerning marijuana, we encourage the federal government to remove marijuana from the list of ‘Schedule 1’ federal controlled substances and to appropriately regulate it, providing a reasoned pathway for future legalization.
We believe that the states should be laboratories of democracy on the issue of marijuana, and those states that want to decriminalize it or provide access to medical marijuana should be able to do so.
We support policies that will allow more research on marijuana, as well as reforming our laws to allow legal marijuana businesses to exist without uncertainty.
And we recognize our current marijuana laws have had an unacceptable disparate impact in terms of arrest rates for African-Americans that far outstrip arrest rates for whites, despite similar usage rates.”

Yeah but are they still in favor of moving it to Schedule 2? I say take it off or make a new classification. Put Lester Grinspoon in charge of a reclassification!

http://247wallst.com/consumer-produ...up-clinton-v-trump-on-marijuana-legalization/

 

[Silat]

Presidential candidate Gary Johnson in a few interviews promised to not smoke pot while in office and hasn't smoked out in over 7 weeks. He is currently eligible in all 50 states and is trying to get a place at the podium. Even if I didn't already agree with most of his policies, he would be so much to the debate. Here is a few clips.

So you agree with the LIBERTARIAN PLATFORM?
Part of it:
KOCH GAME PLAN
In 1980 when David Koch ran as the Vice Presidential candidate on the Libertarian ticket this was part of their platform. It is a manifesto of what David and Charles Koch expect to receive in return for their large investment in American politics.
This is just part of their platform to destroy the country.
• We urge the repeal of federal campaign finance laws, and the immediate abolition of the despotic Federal Election Commission.”
• “We favor the abolition of Medicare and Medicaid programs.”
• “We oppose any compulsory insurance or tax-supported plan to provide health services, including those which finance abortion services.”
• “We also favor the deregulation of the medical insurance industry.”
• “We favor the repeal of the fraudulent, virtually bankrupt, and increasingly oppressive Social Security system. Pending that repeal, participation in Social Security should be made voluntary.”
• “We propose the abolition of the governmental Postal Service. The present system, in addition to being inefficient, encourages governmental surveillance of private correspondence. Pending abolition, we call for an end to the monopoly system and for allowing free competition in all aspects of postal service.”
• “We oppose all personal and corporate income taxation, including capital gains taxes.”
• “We support the eventual repeal of all taxation.”
• “As an interim measure, all criminal and civil sanctions against tax evasion should be terminated immediately.”
• “We support repeal of all law which impede the ability of any person to find employment, such as minimum wage laws.”
• “We advocate the complete separation of education and State. Government schools lead to the indoctrination of children and interfere with the free choice of individuals. Government ownership, operation, regulation, and subsidy of schools and colleges should be ended.”
• “We condemn compulsory education laws … and we call for the immediate repeal of such laws.”
• “We support the repeal of all taxes on the income or property of private schools, whether profit or non-profit.”
• “We support the abolition of the Environmental Protection Agency.”
• “We support abolition of the Department of Energy.”
• “We call for the dissolution of all government agencies concerned with transportation, including the Department of Transportation.”
• “We demand the return of America's railroad system to private ownership. We call for the privatization of the public roads and national highway system.”
• “We specifically oppose laws requiring an individual to buy or use so-called "self-protection" equipment such as safety belts, air bags, or crash helmets.”
• “We advocate the abolition of the Federal Aviation Administration.”
• “We advocate the abolition of the Food and Drug Administration.”
• “We support an end to all subsidies for child-bearing built into our present laws, including all welfare plans and the provision of tax-supported services for children.”
• “We oppose all government welfare, relief projects, and ‘aid to the poor’ programs. All these government programs are privacy-invading, paternalistic, demeaning, and inefficient. The proper source of help for such persons is the voluntary efforts of private groups and individuals.”
• “We call for the privatization of the inland waterways, and of the distribution system that brings water to industry, agriculture and households.”
• “We call for the repeal of the Occupational Safety and Health Act.”
• “We call for the abolition of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.”
• “We support the repeal of all state usury laws.”

 

[Silat]

Comrade Comb Over wants your vote.
Do it for Mother Russia.

 

[Gunky]

Libertarians offer you this sterling bargain: you get legalized marijuana! And in exchange all you have to do is relinquish your birthright of a living wage and a retirement with dignity.

 

[yogoshio]

Then by that logic, Democrats offer: Overbearing and controlling bureaucracy that will determine how much you are allowed to make, all in exchange for not allowing dissension of thought.

If that's not what you believe, maybe its because you know better than listening to the loudest trolls.

 

[CarolKing]

I hadn't really read the libertarian agenda until the other day. It doesn't line up with what I personally believe in. I think it's important to know what it says. I want there to be a net to help people that are struggling.

I only agree with a small persentage of what the libertarian agenda says.

 

[cybrguy]

So Yogo, I'm curious. As a Libertarian, which of the directives listed above as the Koch's Libertarian goals do you disagree with? Which would make your party platform and which would not? I ask because that is a pretty damning list for many many people and not very close the the American mainstream, even as their promoters suggest that that is exactly where they belong. There seems to be quite a lot of disagreement within their "party" as was pretty clear at their convention. Not that all Repubs or Dems agree, but it seems a little easier to get a handle on their positions.

 

[Gunky]

Also: http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2016/07/31/the_simpsons_endorses_hillary_clinton.html

 

[yogoshio]

It's not the line items, its the premise. When you look at the list outside of the perspective, it looks insane. And I feel that that is a large issue for even the two main parties as well, but people already have an inclination as to what the two main parties angles already are.

Libertarians don't want to force anything on anyone. Rather, they want the freedom for people to choose what to do with their lives and money. Does that mean that they don't want a safety net? No, that means they disagree with the one that's there.

It certainly means that the status quo is busted and needs fixing, which I am hard pressed to find anyone that thinks our current method of dealing with problems (ie, creating yet another agency and then throwing unchecked sums of money) hasn't worked. Otherwise there wouldn't be four agencies helping veterans get jobs (arguably all are also failing, because there are talks at another one), three agencies involved in food safety (overlapping jurisdictions causing confusion and stalemates), etc.

It is true that the Libertarian party is still in flux, but I would prefer a fluid understanding of dealing with problems than hard stances that leave no room for internal error and outside discussion.

That's why hardlined lists make it seem ridiculous. If that were the case, I would agree that they were nuts.

 

[Gunky]

It's not the line items, its the premise. When you look at the list outside of the perspective, it looks insane. And I feel that that is a large issue for even the two main parties as well, but people already have an inclination as to what the two main parties angles already are.

Libertarians don't want to force anything on anyone. Rather, they want the freedom for people to choose what to do with their lives and money. Does that mean that they don't want a safety net? No, that means they disagree with the one that's there.

It certainly means that the status quo is busted and needs fixing, which I am hard pressed to find anyone that thinks our current method of dealing with problems (ie, creating yet another agency and then throwing unchecked sums of money) hasn't worked. Otherwise there wouldn't be four agencies helping veterans get jobs (arguably all are also failing, because there are talks at another one), three agencies involved in food safety (overlapping jurisdictions causing confusion and stalemates), etc.

It is true that the Libertarian party is still in flux, but I would prefer a fluid understanding of dealing with problems than hard stances that leave no room for internal error and outside discussion.

That's why hardlined lists make it seem ridiculous. If that were the case, I would agree that they were nuts.

Translation: "Yeah, libertarianism looks totally nuts on the surface and contrary to nearly all your interests. But don't worry, that's just 'cause they are so disorganized!"

No. These guys (ultimately funded by the 1%) want to unravel all the gains that were made after the last few catastrophic boom and bust cycles, like Social Security, minimum wage, health insurance. Their policies are mainly in aid of the top 1%. You can vote for them; it ends up helping Trump.

 

[lwien]

The ABSOLUTE bottom line to all this is that this election is binary decision between Clinton and Trump......period.

Now of course, one can vote with their conscious and vote for someone outside of that binary decision, but my question has and will always be, why would one do that if their effort doesn't produce any results. What purpose does it serve?

I guess one could say that the purpose is so that you can walk away with a clear conscious that you did the right thing, but............what has that "right thing" done in the whole scheme of things other than make YOU feel good. If that is the purpose, I'd think that it would be much easier to just fire up your vape which would accomplish the something rather than casting your vote, eh?

 

[yogoshio]

@Gunky was that you interpreting sign language at Nelson Mandela's funeral? Keep up the good work!

 

[CarolKing]

I agree it comes down to Clinton and Trump anything else you are throwing your vote away or its in Trumps court.

I've said this before, time to organize another third party is before the election even gets to the primary. It's starts now. Yogo get busy now. Organize with folks that think like you do. It will take four years not a few months.

Trump is unbalanced. It's more than just not being ready as president. He's fucking nuts! He needs some counseling from his family, is what Mr Khan said. It's waaaaaay more than that. 80% of the time he doesn't know what he's talking about. You want a president smarter than you are. Right?

 

[CuckFumbustion]

The ABSOLUTE bottom line to all this is that this election is binary decision between Clinton and Trump......period.

KIM G.Johnson is on the ballot on all 50 states. Some people might even vote for him out of frustration with no prior knowledge of him as a candidate at all. Imagine an uncommitted voter entering a voting booth.

Both Trump and Hillary have had their fervent anti-supporters. And More voters consider themselves independent. People have turned out to the primaries in record numbers across the country. I think the reset button has already been pushed on both parties which are still mired in their respective controversies. Many Rep's sat out this convention because of a certain candidate. GW wonders if he is going to be the last elected Republican. Jeb Bush and Romney have been sending out feelers to G.Johnson. People are half-jokingly considering voting for Michelle Obama. It could be binary after the debates. But there is enough grounds to sink either candidate before the election. One reason why I think Bernie has been soft on supporting Hillary.

Libertarians don't want to force anything on anyone. Rather, they want the freedom for people to choose what to do with their lives and money. Does that mean that they don't want a safety net? No, that means they disagree with the one that's there.

That didn't used to be such a radical position once upon a time.

Realistically, A Libertarian like Johnson is only going to create so much reform in four years just to drain the swamp in Washington alone. But if he is only in for that one term that he is bargaining for in his tv ads, that single term will have transparency. Then possibly the next elected president will have little to hide behind. Even if he has no chance of winning, he will offer something to the podium and there can be a serious debate between Hillary and Johnson.
Trump should be appropriately treated like a the 3rd wheel in this election. But their needs to be a second candidate. Even if you disagree with Libertarian philosophies, they do provide a litmus test for what is considered an overreaching government.

VOTE with YOUR conscious and don't be swayed by the rhetoric of the day. (even mine ) I will be scrutinizing G. Johnson's record a lot closer, especially how he managed things as Gov for two terms. other than favorably well in a mostly DEM
state. Remember when MOST OF Us SAID THAT TRUMP WAS UNELECTABLE?? Nobody disputes that now and are scared and I admit I was in that bubble myself.

Is Bernie still participating in the DNC or trying to help with the election? Is he done? I'm not counting him out just yet.

 

[Silat]

Does that mean that they don't want a safety net? No, that means they disagree with the one that's there.

That is exactly what it means. They do not want a safety net other than the one you provide yourself. It is right there in the 1980 platform and the 2016 platform. Facts count.

 

[yogoshio]

You are under the assumption that only the government is the answer. That's a false premise.